Harvest Moon

one of my favorites.

Chicago

I spent 35 hours in Chicago last weekend and it was just enough time for me to fall in love with the windy city. Chris had meetings from Wednesday - Friday, so by the time I got there he was ready for some fun.

We had a exquisite dinner at Avec.

chorizo-stuffed medjool dates with smoked bacon and piquillo pepper tomato sauce & whipped brandade (salt cod) with garlic bread and fresh herbs.


wood-fired flatbread with spanish bonito tuna, celery root, pickled melrose peppers, egg and market apples


All of the menu items looked fantastic; it was very hard to narrow down what we wanted. In the end I was pleased with our choices.


Perfect night for a nice long walk.

Saturday we slept late, which is very easy to do at the W Hotel. They have heavenly beds that are perfect for luxuriating. Hot Doug's was next on our list of places to eat. We arrived at the little corner hot dog shop at 11:30am and finally made it in to order at 1:30. I knew the wait would be long, but it was a beautiful day outside.




Indeed!


I got two Chicago style dogs, 1 with chili. I am now a huge fan of pickles and celery salt on my hot dog. Ooo, and the poppy seed bun! Delish! Chris got a Chicago dog and Jack Daniels sausage. We couldn't take a trip to Hot Doug's without trying the famous duck fat french fries, so we split an order and stuffed ourselves. Hot Doug's was totally worth the two hour wait!

The rest of the day was spent walking around the city.


'Yankee Hotel Foxtrot', my favorite Wilco album.


Millennium Park


Puppet bike! I was cheesing from ear to ear after watching the puppet show. Great music and cute puppets. Loved it!

Chicago is a great city! I can't wait to get back there and explore. Maybe in the spring....

5:30 Dinner

I associate food with love which is pretty common for people who grew up around the table. My fondest childhood memories were spent around a dinner table in Richmond Hill, NY. Grandma worked all day long at Miller Tube Corp. Mom worked for a law firm in Manhattan,and Grandpa spent the day at home on the front stoop of 89-15 104 St. He watched the day go by, and at 2:15 made his way to Holy Child Jesus to walk me home from school. Once we got home Grandpa started dinner. Sometimes it was roasted chicken with lemon and rosemary. My mom always said she could smell the food permeating from our house once she stepped off the train, especially on days when he made the lemon chicken. My favorite was "egg pie", also known as, fritatta. The way he would saute the peppers, onions and garlic filled the house with such wonderful aroma. Next he would ad the potatoes then eggs and cheese. This dish was best made in the heavy, yellow iron fry pan. That pan now resides in my dining room shelf. It's part of our Santoro family history. My mom and Grandma would be home by 5pm and we would all sit around the dinner table at 5:30 every evening and eat. Day after day we did this. Dinner was ALWAYS at 5:30 and you better be there or it was considered disrespectful. Italian Catholics are good at making you feel guilty. After dinner Grandma would clean up the huge mess Grandpa made in the kitchen. Grandpa would get ready for work. He was a musician and played in many bars all over Brooklyn and Manhattan. Over the years many things changed in our lives. We all picked up and moved to Texas in 1991. I turned into a bratty teenager. My Mom got married to a man that tore our relationship apart. But, one thing remained constant through that entire time; dinner at 5:30.
Every night when I cook dinner. I think back to those days spent in the basement kitchen in Queens. The smells of love and the warmth of family. The importance of coming together once a day to connect and listen. Take sometime and enjoy a meal.


I made this "egg pie" on Sunday morning. You would have been proud, Poppy.

96 versus 104

I'm so glad August is over. Seems like it's finally getting cooler in Texas and by cooler I mean 96 versus 104....
Things are progressing nicely with our adoption plan. We have decided on a law center and now just have to jump through all the hoops to make this happen. Hopefully we'll have all the paperwork and home study done within the next 6 months. Then our profile will go up and we'll just sit and wait...patiently.
We have decided to sell our rental property to help pay for our adoption. I'm thrilled about selling, since renting it has been a bloody nightmare...but I'll save that for another post. Hopefully we'll have it on the market by mid February. Chris is working on a fixer upper property, too. That should be done in about a month. Our goal is to pay for everything up front.
We had a nice Labor Day weekend. Spent lots of time with friends. Ate some delicious food and relaxed. Makes me wish all weekends were three days long.
Saturday my friends Jessi and Joe had a couples baby shower. They are expecting a little bundle of love at the end of October. I was happy to help out with the food. Everything was delicious and not a crumb was left when it was time to clean up. I made slow roasted ancho spiced pork sandwiches with cilantro, jalapeno mayo and mini tostadas with chorizo, potato and queso fresca. The last couple of baby showers I attended have been fun. Not the stuffy, let's put a candy bar in a diaper and guess what kind it is...who the hell wants to do that?! Not me!